Electrical pulses transmitted on a band-limited signaling path disperse in time as they travel from source to destination. In systems in which data is transmitted as a sequence of level-encoded electrical pulses, such time-domain dispersion results in a blending of neighboring pulses; an effect known as dispersion-type inter-symbol interference (ISI). Dispersion-type ISI becomes more pronounced at faster signaling rates, ultimately degrading the signal quality to the point at which distinctions between originally transmitted signal levels may be lost.
FIG. 1 illustrates a prior-art signaling system having an equalizing output driver 109 and an equalizing receiver 103 to mitigate dispersion-type ISI resulting from signal transmission on a signaling path 102. The receiver 103 includes a sampling circuit 105 to generate digitized samples 106 of the incoming signal, a shift register 107 to store some number (N) of the most recently received samples, and an equalizer 112 to generate an equalization signal 114 based on samples stored in the shift register 107. Ideally, the equalization signal 114 represents the residual signal level on path 102 of the N prior received samples in the incoming signal so that, by subtracting the equalization signal 114 from the incoming signal in difference circuit 115, the dispersion-type ISI resulting from the prior transmissions is canceled. Because the prior decisions of the sampling circuit 105 are fed back to the sampling circuit input in the form of the equalization signal 114, the receiver 103 is commonly referred to as a decision feedback equalizer (DFE).
One major limitation of the DFE 103 is that the time delay in the overall feedback path from sampling circuit 105 to difference circuit 115 makes it difficult to generate the equalization feedback signal 114 in time to equalize the signal level of the immediately following data value if the least latent sample (i.e., the most recently captured sample 106) is included in the equalization feedback signal 114. Including the least latent sample in the equalization signal is particularly challenging in modem high-speed signaling systems in which incoming symbols are present on the signal path 102 for extremely brief intervals (e.g., less than a nanosecond for signal rates above one Gigabit per second). One solution to the least-latent sample problem is to omit one or more of the least-latent samples from contributing to generation of the decision-feedback equalization signal. Unfortunately, the least latent sample, being nearest in time to the incoming symbol, tends to be the largest contributor to dispersion-type ISI and therefore a primary objective of cancellation by the DFE. Consequently, in signaling systems in which the least-latent sample is omitted from contribution to decision-feedback equalization, transmit-side pre-emphasis is often used to decrease the dispersion-type ISI caused by the least-latent symbol. That is, when a given symbol is transmitted by the equalizing output driver 109, one or more previously transmitted symbols stored in shift register 113 (i.e., the least latent symbols relative to the outgoing symbol) are used to pre-shape the outgoing waveform to reduce the dispersion-type ISI observed at the receiver. Unfortunately, as can be seen in the raw and equalized pulse responses depicted in FIG. 2, forcing the least-latent sample, DN−1, to zero (or near zero) results in significant attenuation of the overall signal level, thereby reducing signaling margins and ultimately limiting the data rate of the signaling system.